Health Care for All Colorado will shoot for a 2014 statewide ballot vote rather than 2013, supporters have decided.

The progressive cause has launched an education effort across the state, but decided to take the extra year to gather support and earn enough of the tens of thousands of signatures it would need to make the ballot, said director Donna Smith.

Health Care for All would put a payroll tax on all residents according to their income and asset levels. Organizers are hoping to put it to vote in 2014. (RJ Sangosti, Denver Post file)

One of the group’s slogans is that health care is a right, not a commodity. Most supporters are backers of “Obamacare” reforms passed by Congress in 2010, but argue they don’t go far enough to guarantee health care to all citizens. In Colorado alone, hundreds of thousands of people will remain without health insurance because of gaps left in undocumented residents, workers changing jobs, and those who risk a penalty in refusing to buy insurance.

Electa Draper is the health writer for The Denver Post and has covered every news beat in a 22-year journalism career at three newspapers. She has a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's in journalism.